Category: united states

Duke pulmonary researcher up to 14 retractions, putting her on our leaderboard

PLOS OneA pair of Duke researchers who each have more than 10 retractions have earned some more.

Both of the newly retracted papers — originally published in 2012 by PLOS ONE — list Erin Potts-Kant as a co-author; one includes her former supervisor, Michael Foster, as lead author. The pair has since left Duke (Potts-Kant was arrested for using school credit cards to shop at the likes of Target, and Foster retired). The reason provided for these retractions will be familiar to anyone who’s been following their case — there were “concerns about the reliability” of the data.

By our count, Potts-Kant now has 14 retractions, making her one of the few women to hold a position on our leaderboard.

Here’s the retraction notice for “Iron Supplementation Decreases Severity of Allergic Inflammation in Murine Lung,” a paper that lists both Foster and Potts-Kant as authors:

Continue reading Duke pulmonary researcher up to 14 retractions, putting her on our leaderboard

Non-retraction notice: Editors explain why two similar papers aren’t redundant

abdominal radiologyEditors have published a notice to let readers know why they’re not retracting a couple of papers.

One paper examined whether the results of CT scans could be used to stage patients with uterine carcinoma; the other considered whether CT scans could be used to predict overall survival in uterine carcinoma. Both papers — by researchers at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center — used data from the same 193 women. After they appeared in in different journals, the editors considered whether they were redundant — a quality that can spell retraction for a paper.

The editors explain why they decided the papers were unique in a brief commentary — a non-retraction notice, if you will — published in a third journal, Abdominal Radiology:

Continue reading Non-retraction notice: Editors explain why two similar papers aren’t redundant

Former Pitt postdoc admits to faking data

pittA former postdoc at the University of Pittsburgh has admitted to committing research misconduct in published papers and in National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant applications.

The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) said on Friday that Kenneth Walker, who was studying the development of the urinary tract,  Continue reading Former Pitt postdoc admits to faking data

College retracts press release about sociologist reviewing manuscript

pctThe Pennsylvania College of Technology, aka Penn College, has retracted a press release about a sociologist there reviewing a manuscript.

Now, although we’ve covered a few retracted press releases, we don’t typically write about such events. This one, however, struck us as odd: Is reviewing a paper really the bar for sending out a press release? What if every university did that every time one of their faculty was asked to review?

The May 2 press release, issued by Penn State, of which Penn College is a part, begins: Continue reading College retracts press release about sociologist reviewing manuscript

Stem cell researchers fix two papers following PubPeer comments

Screen Shot 2016-04-13 at 5.56.09 PMA pair of stem cell researchers have earned two corrections, the result of images that were mislabeled, distorted, or compiled incorrectly, according to the notices.

Kang Cheng prepared the gels when he was a research fellow in last author Sanjeev Gupta‘s lab at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Gupta told us he reviewed the original gels, and the errors didn’t affect the conclusions in the papers, which were reproducible. He noted he believes the problems are the result of honest mistakes:

The errors did not confer any benefits whatsoever either for the papers or for Dr. Cheng.

On PubPeer, commenters have raised questions about the now corrected papers — along with several others on which Gupta is the senior author, but Cheng is not a co-author.

Edward Burns, research integrity officer at Einstein, told us that the medical school looked into an allegation of misconduct against Gupta:  

Continue reading Stem cell researchers fix two papers following PubPeer comments

Book publisher: Authors plagiarized “in good faith” because they cited previous work

A publisher has retracted a chapter from a book on flow cytometry after determining the authors plagiarized some material — but noted that because the authors cited the article they lifted from, they likely acted “in good faith.”

We were tipped off to this retraction from the authors of the review article the chapter plagiarized from, who told us they were upset by the incident and doubted whether the authors had performed the experiments they described in the chapter.

More broadly, the retraction raises an important question: How can publishers retract one chapter of a book, leaving the rest intact?

First, let’s take a look at the retraction notice: Continue reading Book publisher: Authors plagiarized “in good faith” because they cited previous work

Neuroscience journal retracts expression of concern 15 years after investigation

Here’s something we don’t get to write about often: A journal has retracted an expression of concern (EOC) more than 15 years after issuing it.

What took so long? Apparently, the European Journal of Neuroscience (EJN) just recently learned about a review carried out by the author’s previous institution, which concluded that she had not committed misconduct.

Let’s take a look at the retraction note of the expression of concern, which was published last month: Continue reading Neuroscience journal retracts expression of concern 15 years after investigation

Paper linking fecal transplants to obesity in rats retracted for faked data

Diabetes Cover

A paper linking the fecal microbiome to obesity has been retracted after it became clear that one of the co-authors faked some of the data.

The 2014 paper in Diabetes — which found that rats given fecal transplants from obese mice were more likely to become obese themselves if given a particular diet — was pulled after after an institutional investigation found a co-author guilty of falsifying data underlying one figure and fabricating the data of two others.

Co-author Yassine Sakar — formerly based at the French National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRA) in Paris, France — was found responsible for the misconduct. But an official from the institution said that some responsibility must also be shared by the corresponding author Mihai Covosa, who has since resigned from the institution.

Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading Paper linking fecal transplants to obesity in rats retracted for faked data

Einstein grad student admits cooking data, settles with Office of Research Integrity

Screen Shot 2016-04-27 at 1.05.49 PMOne Friday in January, graduate student Meredyth Forbes was reviewing material for her dissertation with her mentor when she decided to make a confession.

She “burst out with a statement that some of the data was fabricated,” said Edward Burns, research integrity officer at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where Forbes worked. It was, Burns told Retraction Watch: Continue reading Einstein grad student admits cooking data, settles with Office of Research Integrity

Does posting on PubPeer count as prior publication? Journal says yes, rejects letter rebutting campus sexual assault data

Jim Hopper

Journals typically shy away from publishing data and text readers have seen before — but amidst the newly established norms of open science and data sharing, what counts as a prior publication?

We’re asking ourselves that question after learning that JAMA Pediatrics has rejected a letter rebutting a recent study in the journal about sexual assault on college campuses after deciding that posting the letter on PubPeer is a prior publication.

The submitted letter (which you can read here) was co-authored by independent consultant, therapist and researcher Jim Hopper, who is also a Teaching Associate in Psychology at Harvard Medical School. It concerned a 2015 paper published in JAMA Pediatrics, which suggested that the long-held belief that most rapists on college campuses are repeat offenders may be false. The findings can have major implications for university efforts to stop assaults, as institutions weigh whether to divert resources towards punishment (if serial offenders are largely responsible) or prevention (if most men only commit assaults once). Continue reading Does posting on PubPeer count as prior publication? Journal says yes, rejects letter rebutting campus sexual assault data